Syria and Iran: Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the Middle East (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

The alliance between Syria and Iran has proved to be an enduring feature on the political landscape of the Middle East. This book traces the critical stages in the evolution and consolidation of the alliance in the 1980s, and offers explanations for its longevity into the 21st century.

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SYRIA AND IRAN
In memory of my father, Mohsen Goodarzi,
patriot, diplomat, and above all, humanist.
SYRIA AND IRAN
Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics
in the Middle East
Jubin M. Goodarzi
TAURIS ACADEMIC STUDIES
·
LONDON NEW YORK
Contents
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Introduction
vii
1
Chapter 1
The Emergence of the Syrian–Iranian Axis, 1979–82
11
Chapter 2
The Achievements and Limits of Syrian–Iranian Power,
1982–85
59
Chapter 3
Intra-Alliance Tensions and the Consolidation of the
Syrian–Iranian Axis, 1985–88
133
Chapter 4
Into the Twenty-first Century: The Syrian–Iranian
Nexus Endures
286
Notes
References
Index
295
342
349
Acronyms and Abbreviations
ABC
ACC
ADP
AFP
AMU
AWACS
CAIS
CENTO
CIA
DFLP
DPA
EC
GCC
GDP
IAEA
ICP
IDF
IISS
INA
IPC
IRGC
IRNA
IRP
IUF
KDP
LCP
MNF
NAM
NATO
NSA
OIC
American Broadcasting Corporation
Arab Cooperation Council
Arab Democratic Party
Agence France-Presse
Arab Maghreb Union
Airborne Warning and Control System
Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies
Central Treaty Organization
Central Intelligence Agency
Democratic Front for the Liberation of
Palestine
Deutsche Presse Agentur
European Community
Gulf Cooperation Council
gross domestic product
International Atomic Energy Agency
Iraqi Communist Party
Israeli Defence Forces
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Iraqi News Agency
Iraq Petroleum Company
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
Islamic Republic News Agency (formerly
Pars Agency)
Islamic Republican Party
Islamic Unification Front
Kurdistan Democratic Party
Lebanese Communist Party
Multinational Force
Non-Aligned Movement
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
National Security Agency
Organization of the Islamic Conference
viii
OPEC
PBS
PLA
PLO
PNSF
POW
PSP
PUK
RASD
SAM
SANA
SAVAK
SDC
SEAL
SLA
SSNP
SWB
TWA
UAE
UAR
UKP
UNIFIL
UNRWA
USAID
USS
USSR
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries
Public Broadcasting Service
Palestinian Liberation Army
Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestinian National Salvation Front
prisoner of war
Progressive Socialist Party
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
Republica Arabe Saharaui Democratica
(Saharan Arab Democratic Republic)
surface-to-air missile
Syrian Arab News Agency
Sazeman-e Ettelacat va Amniyat-e Keshvar
(Shah’s secret police)
Supreme Defence Council
SEa, Air and Land
South Lebanon Army
Syrian Social Nationalist Party
Summary of World Broadcasts
Trans World Airlines
United Arab Emirates
United Arab Republic
United Kurdish Party
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East
US Agency for International Development
United States Ship
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Introduction
Alliances are central to any analysis of Middle East politics. Tribes,
clans and small communities have found security in them since the
dawn of civilization. Indeed, for thousands of years, since the ancient
empires of the Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians and Persians, alliances
1
have been a common feature on the Middle East’s political landscape.
Recurrent struggles between various regional, and later extraregional, powers like the Greeks, Romans and Mongols determined
the course of Middle East history for more than two millennia until
the rise of modern nation-states in the region during the early half of
the twentieth century.
In the decades just before and after the Second World War, the rise
of modern nationalism in the region, the gradual retreat of Britain
and France and the onset of the cold war ushered in a period of
intense political and ideological rivalry among the various radical and
conservative states in the Middle East. The newly-created state of
Israel’s defeat of the Arabs in the 1948 Palestine War, the appeal of
radical Arab nationalism, and archaic political systems exacerbated
and polarized the situation. Also, the region’s vast oil reserves and
geopolitical importance – at the crossroads between Europe, Africa,
Asia and the Indian subcontinent – increased the Middle East’s
significance to the superpowers and led to continued outside interference in the area. Concomitantly, in jockeying for influence and aid
to boost their own regional and international power and position,
many regional actors wanted to exploit the bipolar system by
cultivating close ties with either Washington or Moscow. Others tried
to enhance their security by forging alliances with regional actors that
wanted to minimize the foreign presence in the Middle East. The
volatile and precarious conditions in the region led to the formation
of many short-lived alliances.
In a landmark study on alliance theory and alliance formation in
the Middle East, Walt identified 33 different alliances in the region
2
from 1955 to 1979 alone. The general trend has been for regional
actors to form alliances to diminish a threat posed by another
regional power or alliance. They will overcome their ideological
differences in the face of an immediate threat, for such factors assume
2
SYRIA AND IRAN
more significance in the absence of a security challenge. However,
there is clear evidence that they are more likely to form alliances with
extra-regional actors that are willing to support their political
objectives. Interestingly, as the record during the cold war clearly
demonstrated, ideological factors were more salient in alliances
between Middle Eastern states and their superpower patrons.
In the 1950s and 1960s, conservative, pro-Western monarchies
formed defence pacts against the radical, nationalist, republican
governments that emerged in Syria, Egypt and Iraq. The latter
prematurely attempted to form political unions and assumed a
confrontational stance against Israel and its allies. However, the Arab
defeat in the 1967 Six Day War discredited the radical camp,
diminished the importance of ideology and regime structure in
alliance formation, and eventually gave way to more pragmatic alignments against common threats. This was epitomized by the formation
of the short-lived ‘Arab Triangle’ consisting of Egypt, Syria and Saudi
Arabia in the early 1970s, and its bid to demonstrate Arab
dissatisfaction with the post-1967 status quo and US policy by
launching the 1973 October war. The emergence and evolution of the
Syrian–Iranian axis over the past quarter century is a fascinating and
rare example of an enduring alliance. After the overthrow of the
Iranian monarchy in 1979, the new revolutionary Islamist regime and
the secular Arab nationalist government in Syria cultivated close
bilateral relations and eventually formed an alliance in response to
the direct challenges posed by Iraq, Israel and the USA in the Levant
and Persian Gulf during the 1980s and beyond.
The Syrian–Iranian axis is one of the most intriguing developments
in modern Middle East politics. In the turbulent 1980s, the nature
and longevity of the Tehran–Damascus partnership baffled many
scholars and observers. Many were quick to write it off as a shortterm, opportunistic alliance against Iraq, or describe it as a marriage
of convenience that would dissolve rapidly once Iran ceased to
deliver oil to Syria. Pointing to many differences in their respective
ideologies, as well as their social and political foundations, most
analysts expressed surprise at how a revolutionary, pan-Islamic
theocracy like Iran could form an alliance with a secular, pan-Arab
3
socialist republic like Syria. Moreover, while Ba’thist Syria claimed to
be an ardent supporter and the rightful leader of the pan-Arab cause,
revolutionary Iran advocated Islamic universalism and, during the
4
Khomeini era, purportedly rejected the concept of the nation-state.
Also, although Syria traditionally maintained strong ties with the
INTRODUCTION
3
USSR and was a primary recipient of Soviet military aid in the 1980s,
Moscow’s relations with Tehran’s ruling clerics were strained
5
intermittently after the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
In this book, I aim to provide an in-depth analysis of the forces that
led to the emergence and consolidation of the Syrian–Iranian alliance
during a turbulent decade in the modern history of the Middle East.
The alliance between the two states, which has lasted for more than
25 years, has been an enduring feature of the political landscape of
this troubled region. Moreover, since its inception, it has had a
significant impact on moulding events and bringing about major
changes in the contemporary Middle East. I show that, contrary to
prevailing views (formed by the Syrian and Iranian regimes’
authoritarianism and unpopularity in the West and in parts of the
Arab world), the alliance between them has been essentially defensive
and emerged in response to acts of aggression orchestrated by Iraq
(1980) and Israel (1982), in both cases with the prior knowledge and
tacit support of the USA. Because my research revealed three distinct
phases in the evolution and institutionalization of the Damascus–
Tehran axis, I devote one chapter to each of these stages.
In this brief introduction, I provide a general conceptual framework for understanding the genesis and longevity of the Syrian–
Iranian nexus. In Chapter 1, which covers the emergence of the
alliance between 1979 and 1982, I show that while the initial impetus
for the relationship came from the overthrow of Iran’s conservative,
pro-Western monarchy in 1979, Iraq’s invasion of Iran in September
1980 brought Syria and Iran closer together, with Syria providing
valuable diplomatic and military aid to help Iran stave off defeat and
expel the Iraqi invaders. In Chapter 2, I examine the period between
1982 and 1985 when Israel invaded Lebanon for a second time and
challenged Syria in its backyard. Here, in 1983–85, Iran lent support
to Syria by mobilizing Lebanon’s Shiites to drive out Israeli and
Western forces. In Chapter 3, I cover a critical and problematic phase
in the development of the alliance when the two allies developed
conflicting agendas, which by 1985 had created tensions between
them. However, by the late 1980s, through continued bilateral
consultations in which they were able to prioritize their respective
objectives without impinging on the interests of the other, they were
able to redefine the parameters of cooperation and consolidate their
relationship on a more mature basis. Finally, in the fourth and
concluding chapter, I look at the reasons why the alliance lasted
beyond the 1980s into the twenty-first century.
4
SYRIA AND IRAN
Although Agha and Khalidi (1995) and Ehteshami and Hinnebusch
(1997) shed light on certain aspects of the alliance, they focus
primarily on its continued importance in the 1990s and provide only
a general overview of the formative years of the Tehran–Damascus
nexus. I, however, aim to trace in detail the origins and development
of the strategic partnership between Damascus and Tehran from the
toppling of Mohammad Reza Shah in early 1979 until the Syrian–
Iranian intercession to halt Amal–Hezbollah clashes in Beirut and the
end of the first Persian Gulf war in mid-1988. Besides providing an
empirical survey with a chronology of events, through analysis, I
intend to distinguish three phases in the evolution of the alliance and
explain their significance both in terms of how they affected bilateral
relations between the two states, as well as their regional implications
in the volatile environment of 1979–88.
In my research I relied mostly on secondary sources (books,
periodicals, newspapers), transcripts of radio broadcasts, official government statements, and personal interviews with former government
officials and Middle East experts. Given the closed and often secretive
nature of decision making in the Syrian Ba’thist and Iranian Islamist
regimes, and the importance and sensitivity of cooperative ties
between them, it is improbable that responsible officials would have
engaged in frank discussions on these matters or provided first-hand
knowledge about bilateral relations between the two states. Indeed,
inaccessibility to primary sources and interviews with current government officials in Damascus and Tehran remain the main obstacle to a
complete and accurate picture of the nature and extent of Syrian–
Iranian collaboration during the first decade of the alliance. The
opacity of political decision making among these regimes’ key figures
and bodies poses a formidable challenge to any outsider trying to
understand the inner workings of these authoritarian governments. I
try to compensate with an exhaustive survey and analysis of the available secondary sources and attempt to fill in some of the gaps and
clarify certain inconsistencies by obtaining first-hand information
from former senior government officials. These include former
Iranian president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr’s account of Syrian military
aid to Iran in the early years of the Iran–Iraq hostilities (1980–81)
and Tehran’s policy on the Syrian Muslim Brethren (Chapter 1); and
former US assistant secretary of state (1981–89) Richard Murphy’s
insights on the degree of Syrian–Iranian involvement in attacks on US
assets in Lebanon in 1983–84 (Chapter 2).
My focus on the genesis and development of the Tehran–Damascus
INTRODUCTION
5
nexus during this decade may give the impression that the maintenance and augmentation of their strategic bilateral links was the main
foreign policy consideration of Syrian and Iranian leaders between
1979 and 1989. In some respects, this was the case for both partners,
especially Iran. The Iranian militants’ seizure of the US embassy in
Tehran in 1979 (which plunged US–Iranian relations into an abyss
and led to Iran’s international isolation), and the Iraqi invasion of
Iran in 1980 meant that Khomeini’s regime became extremely dependent on Hafez Assad’s diplomatic and military support. This was
needed to stave off defeat and avoid regional isolation at a time when
Saddam Hussein held the initiative, occupying large swathes of
Iranian territory and trying to depict the war as an Arab–Persian
conflict. With the expulsion of Iraqi forces from most of the areas
they held in Iran by mid-1982 and the concurrent Israeli invasion of
Lebanon, the pendulum swung the other way, with Syria requiring
Iranian assistance to keep Iraq in check and mobilize Lebanon’s
Shiites to expel Israeli and Western forces from its backyard between
1982 and 1985. As the Israeli threat receded with the withdrawal of
Tel Aviv’s troops to the self-declared security zone in mid-1985, and
Arab disenchantment grew as Iran continued the Gulf War, Iran once
again became dependent on Syrian cooperation and goodwill to
maintain a foothold in the Levant and avoid total regional isolation.
This situation continued until the cessation of hostilities with Iraq in
1988. Overall, Tehran valued its strategic alliance with Syria more
between 1979–82 and 1985–88, particularly against the backdrop of
the poor state of US–Iranian relations throughout the 1980s and the
erratic nature of its ties with the USSR and western Europe during
that period. For Syria, the years from 1982 to 1985 represented the
height of its reliance on Iran to undo the achievements of its foes in
Lebanon. At the same time, at the international level, Syria continued
to place great emphasis on its close links with the USSR in the first
half of the 1980s because of the latter’s status as a superpower and as
its main provider of military and economic assistance. However, with
the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 and the gradual cooling of
Soviet–Syrian relations in the second half of the 1980s, a subtle shift
occurred in Syrian perceptions of Moscow. Damascus realized that it
would have to diversify its political and economic ties internationally
and, at the same time, rely more heavily on regional allies and proxies
such as Iran and Lebanon’s Shiites to achieve its strategic and military
objectives and to keep Israeli and Iraqi power in check. While my
main focus is on the evolution of the Syrian–Iranian alliance, I also
6
SYRIA AND IRAN
attempt to locate the bilateral relationship within the context of the
changing regional and international environment of the 1980s. I
show how Syrian and Iranian policymakers viewed the situation
evolving around them and how they tried to utilize their strategic
partnership to achieve their objectives.
During 1980/1 and 1986/7 there were differences of opinion within
the Iranian leadership about the extent and use of cooperative ties
with Syria and, by 1984, Rif’at Assad had serious reservations about
the strategic alliance with Iran. However, for three reasons, I decided
not to concentrate on domestic factors. First, it is clear from the
available evidence that throughout the 1980s and beyond, most key
political decision makers in Tehran and Damascus firmly believed
that perpetuating and strengthening the alliance was central to their
foreign policies. Second, secretive decision making even now makes it
difficult to ascertain what various members of the Syrian and Iranian
leadership really think. Information on the main rifts or differences of
opinion that were ultimately reflected in their domestic or regional
policies are based on interviews and press accounts that appeared at
the time in the Middle Eastern and Western media. Third, the
available evidence and the authoritarian nature of the Syrian Ba’thist
and Iranian Islamist systems suggest that domestic opinion was never
taken into account. In fact, it was a non-issue, particularly for the
Syrian government. Despite disapproval in the Syrian Ba’th Party and
among the Syrian masses of the policy to support non-Arab Iran
during its eight-year war with Arab Iraq, Hafez Assad and his inner
political circle saw no need to alter their position to gain party
6
approval or win domestic support. When the Iranian Islamist regime
began to deliver oil to Syria and to expel the Iraqi army from much of
its soil in 1982, the public gradually began to question the wisdom of
crude shipments to Syria at a time when the Iraqi threat seemed to
have receded and also opposed the continuation of the Gulf conflict.
By the mid-1980s, with Syria failing to make timely payments for its
oil purchases and the acute economic situation in Iran, some Iranian
MPs became quite vocal in their opposition to continued shipments
and to the logic of the alliance with Syria. However, despite some
tensions in bilateral relations, Khomeini and his lieutenants would
not be swayed and were determined to preserve links with their only
7
significant Arab ally. Such is the nature of authoritarian doctrinaire
regimes. Overall, my emphasis here is on the output and policies that
emerged from the black box of Syrian–Iranian decision making.
In general, there is a wealth of information and analysis on the
INTRODUCTION
7
evolution of the Syrian–Iranian alliance during its first decade.
Through careful research and analysis, I try to put the various pieces
together and to shed new light on linkages between major events and
crucial decisions that were made in Tehran and Damascus during one
of the most turbulent periods in the contemporary history of the
Middle East – especially those that regional analysts and scholars
have overlooked or ignored. For example, in Chapter 2, I put the case
that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon on 6 June 1982 and the
subsequent Syrian–Iranian consultations (7–17 June 1982) had a
direct bearing on Tehran’s fateful decision to continue the Persian
Gulf conflict and invade Iraq in the weeks that followed. In Chapter
3, I show how US–Iraqi military operations against Iran in the Persian
Gulf during the spring of 1988 (designed to turn the tide of the Gulf
conflict) prompted Tehran to throw its weight behind Lebanon’s
Hezbollah in its violent confrontation with the rival, pro-Syrian Amal
movement (albeit in a calculated and limited manner) and to try to
maintain its precarious foothold in Lebanon. This bloody affair put
the Syrian–Iranian alliance to the test since Tehran was overtly
defying Damascus in its own backyard.
Before delving into the specific aspects of the genesis and
development of the Syrian–Iranian alliance, it is useful to identify and
elaborate on several general concepts and theoretical explanations to
understand the strength and longevity of the cooperative ties between
revolutionary Iran and Ba’thist Syria. First, the alliance consists of
only two members: it has never been a broad coalition of states with
8
various and divergent interests. Since it is small, it is more viable. In
the words of Holsti et al., ‘the smaller the alliance, the more cohesive
and effective it is, and the more important the contribution of each
9
member.’ Second, it has primarily been a defensive alliance aimed at
neutralizing Iraqi and Israeli offensive capabilities in the Gulf and
Near East, and thwarting American encroachment in the Middle East.
In general, alliances with set and limited objectives are more stable
10
and durable. Both Liska and Walt see defensive alliances as less
fragile than offensive ones. In the latter case, once the opponent has
been attacked and vanquished, the rationale for maintaining the
alliance ceases to exist for the members, and they subsequently fall
11
out over the fruits of their victory. Third, the two partners’ priorities
differ in the two arenas in which they cooperate. The Gulf region is
the main area of concern for Iran, whereas for Syria it is the Levant.
Over time, by continually consulting and modifying their aims, the
two allies have come to recognize this reality and, in the process,
8
SYRIA AND IRAN
have tried to coordinate their policies and accommodate one another
12
while still furthering their own interests. In other words, between
1985 and 1988 Iran finally acknowledged that Syrian interests took
precedence in the Arab–Israeli theatre, and Syria in return deferred to
its Iranian partner when vital matters regarding Gulf security were at
stake for the Islamist government. Though not all their interests
converged, through consultation Tehran and Damascus gradually
harmonized their positions as far as they could. As Liska posits in
Nations in Alliance, the more complementary the interests of alliance
members, the more easily intra-alliance compromises can be
13
achieved. Furthermore, the fact that Syria has carried the greater
part of the burden in checking Israeli power, and Iran’s main role has
been to serve as a bulwark against Iraqi expansionism in the Gulf and
beyond, has meant that the two partners fulfil different functions,
thus reinforcing the rationale and utility of their strategic links. In
other words, the more pronounced the differentiation of functions of
14
the members, the more cohesive the alliance. Fourth, the mere fact
that the alliance has endured for so many years (especially by Middle
East standards), gives it considerable weight and importance.
Interestingly, in Alliances and Small Powers, Rothstein argues that
‘once an alliance has been created, there is positive value placed on
15
continuing it, even if it seems to perform very few functions.’
Furthermore, Kaplan builds on this point by postulating that
longstanding alliances are characterized by greater unity and
16
legitimacy. It is also worth noting that if a member wishes to
abandon an alliance that has become institutionalized, it is prudent to
find another viable arrangement that has at least equal utility. In
other words, the member will pay an opportunity cost unless it joins
or forms an alternative arrangement that is at least equally useful as
the previous alliance.
Finally, another general point needs to be made about the role of
ideology in maintaining an alliance. Ironically, a crucial factor in the
longevity of the Syrian–Iranian axis is that the states have different
ideologies; herein lies the paradox. Quite often, alliances between
states that espouse the same transnational universalistic ideology are
less likely to endure than those in which ideology plays a minimal
role. This is particularly true of the Middle East where authoritarian
regimes predominate and frequently use ideology as a tool to boost
their political legitimacy and base of support domestically and in
neighbouring countries. Revisionist ideologies such as pan-Arabism
and Islamic fundamentalism have frequently been quite divisive
INTRODUCTION
9
because they are used to project power and influence and to
destabilize rival states. In the Middle East, the record clearly shows
that states sharing a common ideology compete for the mantle of
leadership rather than form durable alliances. Each state may claim to
be the legitimate leader, and demand others to relinquish their rights
and sovereignty to form a single political entity. The most poignant
example of this phenomenon was the failure of the various unity
schemes during the 1950s and 1960s involving Nasserite Egypt, and
the radical regimes in Syria and Iraq. Walt supports this view in The
Origins of Alliances. He asserts that alliances among Arab states and
communist countries that have sought to form a single centralized
movement have been unstable and short-lived. In the final analysis,
common ideologies have often served as an obstacle to unity,
prompting states to compete with one another rather than form
17
durable alliances. Iklé also recognized this point in How Nations
Negotiate when he opined that in certain instances, alliances not
characterized by doctrinal unity will more easily resolve internal
18
differences without disrupting the partnership.
In studying the Syrian–Iranian alliance it is apparent that Iran (a
non-Arab nation) is not trying to champion Arab nationalism, unlike
its Syrian partner, which considers itself ‘the beating heart of
Arabism’. Syria, for its part, is not vying to lead the Islamic revivalist
movement in the Middle East or elsewhere. Moreover, Iran refrained
from supporting the Syrian Muslim Brethren in their ill-fated effort to
overthrow the Ba’thist regime in Damascus during the early 1980s. In
general, there has been neither ostensible competition on an
ideological level (except in Lebanon during 1985–88) nor fear that
one partner might upstage the other precisely because of their
distinctly different ideological platforms. According to Dinerstein,
‘ideological dissimilarities will not disrupt alliance cooperation if
19
none of the members is intent on political revolution in the others.’
Both Ba’thist Syria and Islamic Iran have been fiercely independent
states and, throughout the years following the toppling of the Pahlavi
dynasty in Iran, found it expedient to cooperate to thwart Iraqi and
Israeli designs in the region and to frustrate US moves that implicitly
or explicitly supported Tel Aviv and Baghdad. In addition, Damascus
and Tehran were wary of Washington’s attempts to advance its own
agenda and make inroads in the Middle East at their expense. During
1982–85, Syrian President Assad was determined to resist the Reagan
administration’s effort to bring Lebanon within the US–Israeli orbit
and to push for a piecemeal approach to resolve the Arab–Israeli
10
SYRIA AND IRAN
conflict. Khomeini’s Iran shared Syria’s concerns in the Levant and
sought to punish Iraq for its invasion of Iran in 1980 and, after 1982,
much to the consternation of Washington and its Arab allies, tried to
oust Saddam Hussein from power. Moreover, since the end of the
cold war, US hegemony in the Middle East has reinforced the logic of
an alliance between Syria and Iran. Deep-seated concerns in Tehran
and Damascus over US adventurism and the occupation of Iraq in
2003 have strengthened their resolve to stand together and thwart US
ambitions in the region.
In the following chapters, I will demonstrate that Syrian–Iranian
cooperation during the formative years of the alliance had a major
impact on shaping the course of events in the Middle East and
transformed the region. The joint policies pursued by Tehran and
Damascus also had a profound effect on the actions of the
superpowers in the Middle East. Not only did Assad and Khomeini
succeed in inflicting one of the very few foreign policy defeats that
Reagan experienced during his two terms in office, but they also
proved adept at enlisting Soviet support on a number of occasions to
attain their objectives. Furthermore, they frustrated Saddam Hussein
and Menachem Begin’s designs in the region. Careful, well-crafted
strategies eventually led to the expulsion of the Iraqi army from
Iranian territory by 1982, the withdrawal of US troops from Beirut in
1984, and the retreat of Israeli forces from most of the Lebanese
territory they occupied by 1985 (and indeed the self-declared security
zone by 2000). At the same time, despite their impressive achievements, there were limits to the Syrian–Iranian power in the region. As
two middle powers that did not enjoy the backing of most regional
states, and only received some qualified support from the USSR (until
its demise in 1991), they were unable to alter the regional status quo
in their favour, or determine the outcome of events on their own in
the Levant and Persian Gulf. Although the Syrian–Iranian axis
possessed limited offensive capability in regional terms, let alone on
the international level, it was nonetheless a force to be reckoned with
during the 1980s and beyond – one that has left an enduring mark on
Middle East politics.
Chapter 1
The Emergence of the Syrian–
Iranian Axis, 1979–82
The 1979 Iranian revolution was one of the most important milestones in modern Middle Eastern history. The overthrow of the
Pahlavi dynasty not only brought major changes to Iran, but also
ushered in a new era of politics at the regional level. The new regime
under Ayatollah Khomeini’s leadership radically altered the content
and form of Iranian foreign policy. Overnight, imperial Iran, which
had once pursued a strongly pro-Western status quo foreign policy,
was transformed into a new republic committed to a purportedly
universalistic religious ideology and bent on changing the political
map of the Middle East.
The revolutionary changes in Iran during 1978/9 sent tremors
throughout the region, particularly the Arab world. While they
alarmed many regimes that had previously enjoyed close ties with the
imperial government, many non-aligned and pro-Soviet governments
welcomed it enthusiastically. Moreover, it gave a major boost to and
served as a powerful source of inspiration for various Islamic, Third
World and revolutionary movements and political parties in the
region and beyond.
The overthrow of the Pahlavi throne naturally brought with it a
reversal in the pattern of Iran’s alliances and enmities. At a stroke, the
country’s new leadership terminated Iran’s long-standing alliances
with the USA and Israel. Consequently, though not inevitably, Iran’s
relationship with the pro-Western Arab states suffered. As a result of
the changing nature of Arab–Iranian relations, inter-Arab political
configurations and alliances were reconsidered and reshaped to meet
the requirements or challenge of Iran’s new Islamic revolutionary
ideology and foreign policy.
Prior to the Shah’s fall, most Arab governments viewed the political
order in the Middle East as predominantly Arab. Non-Arab actors like
Israel and Iran were confined to the margins of mainstream Arab
12
SYRIA AND IRAN
politics, particularly during the heyday of Arab nationalism in the
1950s and 1960s when Nasser was in power. Then, Tel Aviv and
Tehran saw radical Arab nationalism as a major threat to their
national security and existence, and joined forces to counter the ‘progressive Arab Front’ under Nasser’s leadership. But the devastating
Arab defeat in the 1967 Arab–Israeli war and Nasser’s demise three
years later sounded the death knell of the radical period in mainstream Arab politics and the beginning of a new era of political pragmatism. This was clearly exemplified by the ascendance of new
leaders such as Anwar Sadat in Egypt and Hafez Assad in Syria, who
placed less emphasis on the role of ideology and made realpolitik a
hallmark of their diplomacy in the decade that followed.
When the revolt against the monarchy erupted in Iran, the Arab
political order was weak and in a state of disarray. The failure to
derive any tangible benefits from the limited success of the 1973
Arab–Israeli war, the impasse over Palestine, the lingering domestic
conflict in Lebanon, incessant inter-Arab feuding and Egypt’s
‘defection’ with the signing of the Camp David accords in March
1979, had thrown the Arabs into total confusion. It was within this
context that the Iranian revolution occurred.
As a major watershed in the history of the Middle East, the Iranian
revolution and unique circumstances in the Arab world at the time
dramatically altered the course of events in the Middle East. Revolutionary Iran’s ideology and new foreign policy brought challenges
or opportunities to a number of Arab regimes, particularly Iraq and
Syria. The interplay between events in the Arab world and Iran in fact
heavily influenced Saddam Hussein’s decision to go to war against
Iran in September 1980. Ironically, what was expected to be a swift
Iraqi victory turned into one of the bloodiest and longest wars in
modern Middle Eastern history. At the same time, the conflict turned
the emerging Syrian–Iranian entente into a formal alliance – probably
one of the most durable regional alliances – that has lasted to this day
despite all odds and predictions to the contrary.
With the outbreak of the first Gulf war on 22 September 1980,
many observers expected Syrian President Assad to join ranks with
the other Arab leaders who rallied to aid Iraqi strongman Saddam
Hussein in his effort to deliver a major blow to non-Arab Iran and
blunt the intrusive edge of its Islamic revolution. At the very least,
after the recent break in Syrian–Iraqi relations and the looming
possibility of a serious confrontation with Israel in Lebanon now that
Egypt was no longer a frontline state, Assad was expected to declare his
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
13
neutrality. Indeed, in view of its precarious regional position, Damascus
could have chosen to avoid having enemies on both its eastern and
western flanks. Such expectations were partly based on the structural
and ideological similarities between Assad’s and Hussein’s regimes.
Both leaders had come to power through Ba’th Party orchestrated
military coups in their respective countries and both espoused a panArab socialist ideology. However, to the dismay of many, by 1982 the
war had led to the consolidation of the emergent Syrian–Iranian axis.
There has been a great deal of debate among scholars and analysts
over what prompted Damascus and Tehran to seal their ‘unholy
alliance’ in spring 1982. Many observers put it down to their common
hostility to Iraq. Although this was no doubt an incentive, it would be
a gross oversimplification to regard it as the only important factor in
developing the Syrian–Iranian alliance. Careful analysis reveals that,
despite their differences and certain discrepancies, the birth of the
Syrian–Iranian entente between 1979 and 1982 can be viewed as
much more than an alliance of convenience against Iraq.
In this chapter, I aim to provide an accurate chronology of events
and in-depth analysis of the chain of events and forces that moulded
and influenced the start and eventual formalization of the relationship between the winter of 1979 and spring of 1982. It is important to
note from the outset that Syria’s decision to mend fences with Iran
after the success of the Islamic revolution, must be observed through
the prism of inter-Arab politics, Assad’s leadership ambitions, and
revolutionary Iran’s new foreign policy orientation and ideology.
Syrian–Iranian relations before the 1979 revolution
Under the Shah, bilateral relations between the two states had been
anything but cordial. Despite a brief thaw in the mid-1970s, their
relations had fluctuated between outright hostility and cold peace
throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s. Pahlavi Iran perceived
Ba’thist Syria, with its close ties with the USSR and support for radical
Arab movements, as a menace in the region. Moreover, Syria’s vociferous claims that the Iranian province of Khuzestan (historically and
more accurately known by Arabs as Arabestan) was ‘an integral part
of the Arab nation’ because of its indigenous Arab population, and
that the Gulf had an ‘Arab character’ greatly disturbed Iranian
1
officials. The Shah perceived radical Arab nationalism as a major
threat to Iran’s regional interests and national security.
Syria’s Ba’thist leaders (who first seized the reins of power in 1963)
saw imperial Iran as a source of instability in the Middle East and a
14
SYRIA AND IRAN
dangerous enemy of the Arab nation. They resented the Shah’s close
ties with Israel and conservative pro-Western Arab regimes. From
their viewpoint, the Shah served as an instrument of US imperialism
in the region by thwarting Arab aspirations and, more specifically, by
impeding efforts to liberate Palestine from the Zionists.
Since full diplomatic relations were established in 1946, a striking
and recurrent feature of modern Syrian–Iranian relations has been
that the tightening or loosening of bilateral ties depends largely on
the state at the time of Syrian–Iraqi and Iranian–Iraqi relations and
2
the regional environment. This was evident in the mid-1950s, but
became more pronounced after the creation of the UAR in February
3
1958. Both Hashemite Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Pahlavi Iran were
alarmed by the union between Egypt and Syria. King Faisal of Iraq
subsequently visited Tehran to resolve outstanding differences with
the Shah over their common borders and other issues. Indeed,
Iranian–Iraqi relations improved noticeably during February–July
1958, prior to the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy.
In July 1960, when the Shah stated at a press conference that Iran
already recognized Israel, UAR President Nasser severed diplomatic
4
ties with it. It was thus no surprise that when Syria left the UAR in
September 1961, the Shah welcomed the event and moved to restore
full diplomatic relations with the new government in Damascus.
However, following the Ba’thist seizure of power in Iraq and Syria in
February/March 1963, and the ensuing tripartite negotiations in
Cairo in March/April, Iran was extremely concerned about the prospect of a union between Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Despite the collapse of
this initiative by mid-1963, Iran remained uneasy as the Syrian and
Iraqi Ba’thists subsequently took steps to create a union between their
two countries. This process came to an abrupt end when Abd alSalam Arif ousted the Iraqi Ba’th Party in November 1963.
It is noteworthy that when Baghdad and Cairo drew closer after the
Cairo summit of January 1964, and strengthened their political and
military ties, Iraq’s relations with Syria and Iran deteriorated. Nasser
and Arif were both dismayed to see the Syrian Ba’th Party strengthen
its grip on power and stabilize the situation. The Syrian Ba’thists, for
their part, fearing being trapped between a ‘hammer and anvil’,
launched an intensive propaganda war against Arif and the Syrian
news media’s attacks on Iran ceased. Damascus seemed to have
modified its policy on Tehran to avoid needlessly alienating it in view
of the emergent Iraqi–Egyptian alliance. Both Damascus and Tehran
became concerned about the visit of the Egyptian chief of staff
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
15
Marshall Abd al-Hakim Amer to Amman in mid-1964 in a bid to
draw Jordan into the Iraqi–Egyptian orbit.
Although Syrian–Iranian relations never improved markedly, by
1965 significant shifts had occurred in the Syria–Iraq–Iran triangle.
As the Shah and Arif tried to ease tensions and reach a modus vivendi
in the Gulf, Syrian–Iranian relations plunged to an all-time low when,
in an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Yusuf Zu’ayyin’s militant
Ba’thist government called for the ‘liberation’ of Arabestan from
‘Iranian occupation’ and printed official maps designating it as part of
5
the Arab homeland. Iran’s riposte was to lodge an official protest
with the Syrian government and withdraw its ambassador and most
of its diplomatic staff from the country, leaving only one official representative in Damascus.
There was some improvement in bilateral relations after the June
1967 Arab–Israeli war when Iran’s Red Lion and Sun Society
(renamed Red Crescent Society after the 1979 revolution) sent
medical personnel and humanitarian aid to assist the Syrian wounded
6
and refugees displaced by the fighting. While diplomatic relations
were upgraded to the chargé d’affaires level and trade links improved,
there were intermittent tensions. In 1969, the situation again
degenerated when the Syrians uncovered an Iranian espionage
network in their country and the number of staff in their respective
embassies was reduced.
In 1970, as the Jordanian–Palestinian confrontation erupted during
Black September, with Syrian and Israeli military intervention in
7
Jordan, Iran sent munitions and weapons to the Jordanian army and
the Shah mediated between King Hussein and the Israelis. Through
Iran’s good offices, the Jordanian monarch obtained guarantees from
Tel Aviv that its military intervention was only intended to crush the
8
Palestinians, and would not aim to destabilize the Hashemite regime.
Hafez Assad’s successful coup in November 1970 brought no
noticeable improvement in Syrian–Iranian relations. In July 1973,
Assad condemned the ill-fated, Iranian-backed attempt by Iraqi
intelligence chief Nadhim Kzar to topple the rival wing of the Ba’th
9
Party in Baghdad on 30 June 1973.
Bilateral relations between Syria and Iran improved during the 1973
Arab–Israeli war and its aftermath. During the conflict, Iran provided
10
logistical, medical and non-military assistance to the Arab combatants.
In the period that followed the war, Iran gave some financial assistance and relations warmed up to some degree. Within two months of
the cessation of hostilities, in December 1973, the process of
16
SYRIA AND IRAN
upgrading relations to ambassadorial level began with the appoint11
ment of a new Iranian ambassador to Damascus. In 1974, after several
ministerial-level exchanges, Iran agreed to provide a US$ 150 million
loan and a US$ 50 million grant to finance a number of industrial and
agricultural development projects in Syria. High-level exchanges
between the two erstwhile foes continued, and in 1975 Iran gave an
additional US$ 300 million in loans to Syria. The warming of relations between Syria and Iran and the simultaneous deterioration of
Syrian–Iraqi ties in the period following the 1973 Arab–Israeli conflict,
prompted Hafez Assad to undertake his first state visit to Iran in
December 1975 to consolidate what seemed to be an emerging friendship with Iran. He was also determined to avoid being outmanoeuvred by the Iraqis, who had concluded the Algiers accord with Iran in
March 1975 and were in the process of mending fences with their
12
Iranian neighbour. Assad’s four-day state visit (28–31 December 1975)
paved the way for further ministerial-level exchanges to expand
political, economic and cultural ties between the two countries. However, the process is best described as a limited rapprochement.
With warmer Egyptian–US relations, Sadat’s decision to pursue a
separate peace with Israel and the Shah’s close ties with Cairo and
Washington, Assad had hoped to convince the Shah to use his influence to persuade the Americans to assume a balanced approach in
their attempts to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict. Much to Assad’s
13
chagrin, the Iranian monarch refused to accommodate his request.
The Shah instead encouraged Anwar Sadat’s peace initiative towards
14
Israel. Consequently, by the late 1970s, the rift between Tehran and
Damascus seemed irreparable. It was therefore quite understandable
that when the Shah was deposed in February 1979, Assad saw the
change in government as a positive development and deemed it
necessary to establish cordial ties with the new revolutionary government, which seemed sympathetic to the Arab cause and the plight of
the Palestinians.
The Syrian experience in the regional context
Syria’s motive for establishing close links with the new clerical regime
can be partially understood in the context of inter-Arab and internal
Syrian politics. Assad’s bitter experiences of dealing with other Arab
states between 1973 and 1979 had by 1979/80 prompted him to re15
evaluate his regional policies. Egypt’s betrayal in the 1973 Arab–
Israeli war and its unilateral efforts following the war to work out a
separate peace agreement with Israel, which eventually resulted in the
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
17
signing of the Israeli–Egyptian Sinai agreement of September 1975,
had outraged the Syrians. With Egypt out of the picture, the efficacy
of any military action on the part of the Syrians in response to Israeli
aggression was greatly reduced.
Concurrently, in March 1975, Iraq signed the Algiers accord with
Iran, which settled the border disputes between the two countries and
implicitly recognized Iran’s superiority in the Gulf. With its eastern
borders and outlet to the Gulf now secure, in April 1976, after failing
to reach an agreement with Syria on transfer fees (for exporting Iraqi
oil via the trans-Syrian pipeline), Iraq informed Damascus that it
would cease to use the trans-Syrian pipeline. Iraq’s decision brought
huge financial losses to Syria, which helplessly watched the deterioration of economic and political conditions at home and the decline of
16
its power and prestige abroad.
The evolution of the US-approved Saudi–Iranian–Egyptian axis,
Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 and the Camp
David accords in March 1979 further isolated Damascus. Syria was
even sidelined at the November 1978 Arab summit held in Baghdad
to create a united front against Egypt’s warming relationship with
Israel and, to its disappointment, witnessed the formation of the
17
Saudi–Iraqi–Jordanian entente.
Between October 1978 and July 1979 a rapprochement between
Syria and Iraq seemed a distinct possibility. This was partly because
of the need to forge a credible military alliance to keep Israeli power
in check on the western front, thus relieving Syria of some pressure
and bolstering Iraq, which was uneasy about the chaos in neighbour18
ing Iran and its potential impact on its own Shiite population. A
Syrian–Iraqi partnership did not, however, materialize. Mutual distrust and irreconcilable differences eventually brought the bilateral
negotiations to a screeching halt in the summer of 1979 when Iraq
accused Syria of involvement in a coup attempt to topple the Ba’thist
regime in Baghdad, despite Syrian denials. Damascus was again
isolated and placed in a vulnerable position vis-à-vis Israel and a
hostile Iraq. It was thus no surprise that by 1979/80, the betrayals and
disappointments of the past had killed any lingering Syrian hope of
19
relying on fellow Arabs. Assad subsequently continued to cultivate
even closer relations with the new revolutionary government in
Tehran and watched events unravel in Iran with great interest.
Syrian–Iranian rapprochement: February–July 1979
Immediately after the collapse of the monarchy, on 12 February
18
SYRIA AND IRAN
1979, Assad sent Khomeini a telegram congratulating him for his
triumph over the Shah. In his message, he praised the ‘Iranian
people’s victory’, and went on to say: ‘we proclaim our support for the
new regime created by the revolution in Iran. This regime is inspired
by the great principles of Islam. The creation of this regime is in the
Iranian people’s greatest interest, as well as that of the Arabs and
20
Muslims.’ In fact, Syria was the first Arab country to recognize the
new regime in Iran, though Libya, Algeria, South Yemen and the PLO
also expressed strong support for the new leadership in Tehran.
Conversely, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt reacted cautiously.
Iraq’s foreign minister, for example, on hearing of the Shah’s
overthrow, only went so far as to say that ‘Iran’s internal affairs
21
concern the Iranian people only.’ However, it was clear, even during
the winter of 1978/9, that the Iraqi Ba’thists were very concerned
about the opposition movement in Iran having assumed a religious
character. Baghdad was wary of a Shiite revival and its potential
repercussions on Iraq. Even before the toppling of the Pahlavi throne,
the Shah’s close ally, King Hussein of Jordan had gone on record as
22
denouncing Khomeini as a heretic.
Straight after the revolution, Hafez Assad’s brother, Rif’at, sent
envoys to Tehran to discuss ways of cooperating between the two
countries, particularly against Iraq. Tehran followed up on these
contacts by dispatching emissaries to Damascus to explore various
options to lend support to the Iraqi opposition, particularly in the
Shiite south. Rif’at, who served as commander of the Syrian defence
brigades (Saraya al-Difa’), apparently opposed the Syrian–Iraqi unity
talks, for he feared that they might benefit his leading rival for
succession to his brother, former air force and intelligence chief, Na’ji
23
Jamil, who had close ties with the Iraqi Ba’thists.
In March, the first senior Syrian official, information minister
Ahmad Iskandar Ahmad, visited Iran where he met Ayatollah Khomeini in Qom and presented him with an illuminated Quran as a gift
24
from Hafez Assad. Apart from bilateral relations between the two
states starting on the right footing, the regional foreign policies of
both were strikingly similar. Damascus and Tehran perceived and
interpreted various regional developments in the same manner. This
trend reinforced the growing cooperation between the two states. In
Iran’s case, relations with Arab states that had enjoyed close relations
with the ancien régime (Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq) gradually deteriorated. Conversely, Arab governments and movements
that had been hostile to the Shah began to seek favour with revolu-
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
19
tionary Iran. Close ties were cultivated with the Polisario Front,
Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi and Shiite movements in both Iraq and
Lebanon. It also came as no surprise in early May when Khomeini
instructed the foreign ministry to sever diplomatic ties with Egypt
‘bearing in mind the treacherous treaty between Israel and the
Egyptian Government’s unreserved obedience to the USA and
25
Zionism’.
Syria also found itself with few reliable allies as events unfolded in
early 1979. With Egypt out of the equation in the Arab–Israeli conflict, Syria initially pinned its hopes on the unity scheme with neighbouring Iraq. Indeed, some progress was made towards implementing
the scheme in the winter of 1978/9. However, by April 1979, it had
become clear that the leadership of the two rival wings of the Ba’th
Party had incongruent visions about what unification would entail.
As progress in the negotiations became painfully slow and finally
grinded to a halt, Assad began to give careful consideration to the
next viable option – an alliance with Iran to outflank Iraq, bolster his
position vis-à-vis the Gulf Arab sheikhdoms and strengthen his hand
among the Lebanese Shiites.
Following a referendum on Iran’s future form of government, Assad
sent another congratulatory message to Khomeini on the Iranian
people having finally achieved their aspirations. He also expressed
confidence that their bilateral relations would continue to grow and
flourish at the official and popular levels. Their rapprochement in the
spring and summer of 1979 coincided with a marked deterioration in
Iran’s relations with Iraq and the Gulf Arab states. While Tehran
encouraged the Iraqi Shiites to defy the government in Baghdad, Iraq
also conducted a wide range of activities to support centrifugal forces
on the periphery of Iran, including Kurdish and Arab movements that
demanded autonomy or independence from the Iranian state. By late
spring, a major insurrection had broken out in Iranian Kurdistan,
while in the oil province of Khuzestan (Arabestan) local resistance
movements had begun to oppose the regime by attacking oil installations and government facilities. The Iraqi Ba’th Party did its utmost
to encourage the unrest in these regions in order to pin down Iranian
security forces, thereby weakening the Iranian state to the benefit of
Iraqi power and influence in the Gulf region.
One should note that Iraq’s campaign was not totally offensive: it
was partially a defensive attempt to neutralize and deter Iranian
interference in Iraq’s domestic affairs by levelling the playing field. By
June 1979, a propaganda war was in full swing with the media of each
20
SYRIA AND IRAN
side denouncing the other. Tehran portrayed Iraqi leaders as
unbelievers belonging to a ‘Takriti clique’, while Baghdad depicted
the clerics as ‘turbaned shahs’ with pre-revolutionary ideas of Persian
racial superiority and intent on expanding Iran’s ‘lebensraum’ in the
Gulf region at the expense of the Arabs.
In an editorial on 14 June in the Iraqi daily Al-Thawrah, the author
severely criticized the theocratic regime in Tehran and belittled the
past achievements of Persian civilization, by arguing that:
Persia was liberated from the tyranny of emperors only twice in
thousands of years. The first time was by the Muslim Arabs who
bravely fought Anoushiravan, defeated his army and demolished
his empire – which was built on tyranny and corruption – and
spread Islam, the religion of right and justice, in Persia. The
second time the Iranians were only able to rid themselves of
their tyrannical emperor, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, through
Islam – for whose advancement and spread among nations,
including the Persian nation, primary credit should go to the
Arabs.
As early as June that year, Tehran radio’s Arabic service called on
Iraqi people to unite and topple the tyrannical regime that was
26
oppressing them. Then, statements by some prominent clerics with
no official status in the regime further tarnished Arab–Iranian
relations. The most notable instance occurred at a press conference in
Qom on 15 June, when Ayatollah Sadeq Rouhani declared that
Bahrain was an integral part of Iran. His statement, which Baghdad
and Cairo sharply rebuked, provoked a strong reaction throughout
the Arab world. By July, Iran’s relations with Iraq and many other
conservative Arab states had degenerated to such a degree that two
distinct camps with conflicting positions on Iran had crystallized in
the Arab world. The battle lines of the Persian Gulf War had been
drawn.
Before looking at the numerous developments in Syrian–Iranian
and Arab–Iranian relations in the year preceding the outbreak of the
Gulf War, it is necessary to present a brief overview and analysis of
Iran’s new foreign policy after the toppling of the Pahlavi throne and
the Syrian reaction.
New Iranian foreign policy and the Syrian response
Once in power, the new regime in Tehran followed up on the policies
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
21
of Shahpour Bakhtiar’s government, which had been in power for the
last 37 days of the imperial regime, which broke off diplomatic relations with Israel and South Africa, withdrew from CENTO and
announced that Iran would no longer assume the role of the West’s
policeman in the Gulf. With respect to the Arab–Israeli conflict,
Tehran turned over the former Israeli embassy to the PLO as an
expression of its solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Iran not only
became an enemy of Israel but also identified with the position of the
Steadfastness Front.
In the light of Iran’s new political posture and Egypt’s banishment
from the Arab fold, Syrian officials argued that losing Egypt to Israel
could be offset by forging an alliance with Persian Iran. As they saw
it, nurturing an Arab–Iranian friendship would strengthen the Arab
camp. Despite Egypt’s absence, a powerful new ally like non-Arab
Iran would enhance the ability of the Arab states to undermine Israeli
power in the region. Moreover, with the loss of Iran being one of the
greatest setbacks suffered by the West and Israel since Nasser’s rise in
Egypt almost a quarter of a century earlier, the Arabs would be
27
foolhardy not to exploit this new opening.
On changing Tehran’s foreign policy, the Iranian authorities took
measures to bring public opinion in the country in line with the
state’s new international political orientation. Unlike the Shah, who
tried to generate a chauvinist ideology by glorifying Iran’s pre-Islamic
history, and to purify Persian culture by ridding it of outside influences (particularly Arab), the revolutionary regime downplayed Iran’s
Persian heritage to emphasize its Islamic character. The Iranian
authorities made systematic efforts to stress the commonality of
interest, history and culture between Persians and Arabs within the
framework of the Islamic ummah (community). The increase of
Arabic language instruction and Arab studies in the curricula of
28
schools and universities reflected this trend. Some Iranian officials
stated that the Persian Gulf should be called neither ‘Persian’ nor
29
‘Arabian’ but the ‘Islamic’ Gulf. The Iranian foreign minister, Karim
Sanjabi, announced that Prime Minister Bazargan’s provisional
government would reconsider the fate of the three Gulf islands Iran
had occupied since November 1971 (Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and
Abu Musa) and would possibly turn them over to the UAE.
Politically, Iran’s newfound flexibility on issues pertaining to the Gulf
and its security were part of an overall effort to show friendliness to
the Gulf Arab states. From the ideological perspective of the Islamic
universalist approach, it was felt that territorial disputes and names of
22
SYRIA AND IRAN
bodies of water should not drive a wedge between Muslim peoples,
regardless of their nationality.
The Syrians, for their part, tried to convince their fellow Arabs that
the Islamic revolution provided ‘a unique opportunity to end the
30
historic Arab–Persian animosity’ and bring Iran into the Arab camp.
On the other hand, they knew quite well that if the Arabs took a
hostile stance towards Iran, there was a distinct possibility that
31
Tehran would renew its links with Tel Aviv and Washington. They
also knew that Iran’s revolutionary ideology contained internationalist and indigenous ideas that were incompatible – namely an Islamic
universalist ideology on the one hand versus Iranian nationalism
influenced by Ithna Ashari (Twelver) Shiism on the other. Historically, these two contending positions had presented Iran policy
makers with a major dilemma. Like other revolutions that occurred
in a specific national and international context, the foreign policy of
the Islamic Republic could be interpreted as the product of a dialectical relationship between Iran’s affinity with Arabs because of its
Islamic faith versus Iranian nationalism, which differentiates Iran
32
from its Arab neighbours.
Many Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq,
felt threatened by the vitriolic rhetoric emanating from Tehran and so
did not share Syria’s enthusiasm for the Iranian revolution. They did
not see the revolution as an opportunity to end the Arab–Iranian rift,
but rather as an event that could spark domestic unrest in neighbouring states and threaten regional stability. As it turned out, Iranian–
Iraqi relations, for instance, were marked by tension and distrust
from almost the very beginning.
It is important to note that the failure of the Syrian–Iraqi unity talks
corresponded in time with the emergence of the Islamic Republic in
Iran. In fact, the 1979 Iranian revolution sharpened already existing
antagonisms and introduced new stumbling blocks on the path to
reconciliation. On almost every issue to do with Iran, be it the Shah,
Khomeini, Shiite fundamentalism or Arab–Iranian relations, Damascus and Baghdad had conflicting views. While Iraqi–Iranian relations
steadily improved under the Shah between 1975 and 1979, Syrian–
Iranian ones deteriorated over the same time period. In the 1970s,
Syria had provided a safe haven to the Shah’s opponents, while Iraq
33
had expelled Khomeini at the Shah’s request in October 1978. Assad
welcomed the Shiite awakening in the Middle East after the Iranian
revolution, while Baghdad feared that Iran would incite the restive
Shiite population in southern Iraq to rebel against it.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
23
Overall, while Syria saw revolutionary Iran as a powerful new ally
of the Arabs in the struggle against Israel, Iraq viewed it as a major
threat to the security of the eastern flank of the Arab world and the
sheikhdoms of the Gulf. In 1979/80, Syria and Iran drew closer to one
another, while Iraq distanced itself from both and assumed a more
militant posture vis-à-vis Iran as tensions between the two states
escalated.
The Syrian–Iranian entente and the road to war (1979–80)
A month after the Syrian–Iraqi negotiations collapsed amid accusations of Syrian involvement in the alleged coup attempt, Syrian
foreign minister Abd al-Halim Khaddam was sent to Iran as part of a
major diplomatic initiative to expand relations between the two
states. Khaddam held talks with Iranian foreign minister Ebrahim
Yazdi and Prime Minister Bazargan on increasing political and economic cooperation between the two countries. He also met Khomeini
in Qom where he declared that Iran’s Islamic revolution was ‘the
most important event in [our] contemporary history’. He proudly
stated that Syria had assisted the forces that participated in the
Iranian revolution ‘prior to its outbreak, during it and after its
34
triumph’. On the Arab–Israeli conflict and Egypt’s defection from
the Arab camp, he pointed out that the revolution was considered to
be a positive ‘step in restoring the balance in the area against the
35
Zionist enemy’. Furthermore, in subsequent meetings between
Syrian information minister Ahmad Iskandar Ahmad and his Iranian
counterpart, Dr Minachi, it was agreed that SANA would set up an
office in Tehran and, similarly, Iran’s Pars news agency (later
renamed IRNA) would open up an office in Damascus.
When Syria began to make serious overtures to Iran, the latter
could respond positively because of the rapid deterioration of Arab–
Iranian relations in the Gulf. Tehran thus gradually began to put
more emphasis on its friendship with Damascus. The tensions in the
Gulf were to a large extent an outgrowth of the escalating crisis
between Iran and Bahrain.
Deterioration of Iranian–Gulf Arab ties and the Syrian mediation effort
Although the appointment of an Iranian ambassador to Manama
partly allayed Bahraini concerns, the detention of a prominent
Bahraini Shiite cleric, Muhammad Ali al-Akari, on his return from a
visit to Iran sparked demonstrations and unrest. Iran accused Bahrain
of persecuting its Shiites and demanded the immediate release of all
24
SYRIA AND IRAN
political detainees. The escalating cycle of tension continued with
Iran (intentionally or inadvertently) conducting naval manoeuvres in
the Gulf, which Bahrain interpreted as Iranian muscle-flexing. By
September, Saudi Arabia had dispatched two army brigades to the
island at Manama’s request. Ayatollah Rouhani subsequently added
more fuel to the fire by warning the Emir of Bahrain that unless he
stopped oppressing his people, Iran would encourage the Bahrainis to
36
demand unification with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran’s behaviour drew harsh criticism from different corners of the
Arab world. Apart from sharp words from Bahrain and Kuwait, as a
sign of things to come, the Iraqis and Egyptians were only too happy
to denounce Iranian behaviour and express readiness to protect Arab
interests in the Gulf. Egyptian Vice-President Mubarak stated that
Egypt would, if asked, provide military support to Bahrain or any
other Arab state that was the victim of foreign aggression. Iran, in
turn, lashed out accusing Baghdad and Cairo of blowing the matter
out of proportion to justify trying to fill the vacuum left by the Shah
as the new policemen in the Persian Gulf.
The struggle in the Tehran government between pragmatic and
radical elements over whether to export the Islamic revolution or to
pursue its goals at home had a direct impact on the country’s foreign
relations. Iran’s neighbours, in particular, were disturbed rather than
soothed by the mixed signals emanating from Tehran. Coupled with
historical Arab–Persian and Sunni–Shiite prejudices, the stage was
gradually being set for a full-scale war. The Kuwaiti and Iraqi news
media at the time accused Iran of using religion as a front to establish
a new Persian empire and to create schisms among the Sunni and
Shiite Arabs in the area.
Although Iran’s image was becoming sullied in much of the Arab
world, Syria and other members of the Steadfastness Front maintained their loyalty to the Iranian revolution. In September, Foreign
Minister Yazdi stopped off in Damascus on his way back from an
NAM summit in Havana. In his meeting with Assad, he extended an
invitation to the Syrian leader to visit Iran in the near future. This was
followed up by the visit of Iranian deputy prime minister Dr Sadeq
Tabatabai in early October to discuss the rift between Iran and its
Arab neighbours. After meeting Assad and other senior officials, he
explained at a press conference that revolutionary Iran’s foreign
policy was based on the principle of non-interference in the affairs of
its Arab neighbours. However, Iran would not sit idly by in the event
of a conflict between the Arabs and Israel. With regard to Bahrain, he
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
25
emphasized that neither Khomeini nor any other Iranian official had
ever claimed Bahrain to be part of Iran. He went on to attack
Egyptian President Sadat as a traitor to the Arab cause who was
attempting to fan the fires of hatred in the Gulf in order to re-enter
the Arab fold in a circumspect manner. Tabatabai also held discussions with the grand mufti of Syria who praised the Iranian
revolution, stressed the need for Islamic unity and declared that there
was no difference between Sunnis and Shiites.
To defuse the situation in the Gulf, of which Iraq and Egypt were
taking full advantage, a few days later, Tabatabai and the Syrian
foreign minister Khaddam flew to Manama to speak to the emir of
Bahrain, Shaykh Isa Bin Salman Al-Khalifah. There, they had a joint
meeting with the emir, prime minister, foreign minister and heir
apparent (who was also the defence minister). Despite the joint
Syrian–Iranian initiative to calm tensions, and subsequent Syrian
claims that their mediations had bridged the differences between the
Gulf Arabs and Iran, relations between the two sides continued to be
uneasy.
Iraqi–Iranian relations then sank to new depths in autumn 1979. A
cycle of mutual recriminations, continuous border clashes, incessant
interference in the affairs of the other and calls to overthrow the
other regime led to the closure of Iranian consulates in Basra and
Karbala, and Iraqi consulates in Khorramshahr and Karbala. However, a major confrontation with the USA after Islamic militants
seized the US embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979, temporarily
eclipsed the growing tensions with Iraq.
Iran’s confrontation with the USA and Iraq, and Syria’s role
In the immediate aftermath of the embassy takeover, Syria declared
its support for the Iranian action and called on other Arab states to
throw their weight behind Iran. The Syrians even suggested that the
Arab League take up the issue at its summit in Tunis in late November. Foreign Minister Khaddam stated that ‘the Iranian revolution
gave appreciable help to the Palestinian cause and it is normal that it
37
should be backed by the Arabs.’ Libya insisted that the Arab League
take up and challenge the Carter administration’s decision to freeze
Iranian assets in US banks, but the Arab League’s foreign ministers
rejected the request outright. In the meantime, a flurry of diplomatic
activity ensued. Iran’s new foreign minister Bani-Sadr held extensive
talks with Syrian ambassador Ibrahim Yunis on how to broaden the
scope of political and economic cooperation between the two
26
SYRIA AND IRAN
countries, while an Iranian delegation was dispatched to Tunis to galvanize Arab support for Iran’s case against the USA. Iranian representatives subsequently held a series of meetings there with Syrian
President Hafez Assad, Lebanese Prime Minister Selim Hoss, PLO
Chairman Yasser Arafat, Libyan Foreign Secretary Jallud and the
Algerian delegation. Again, only Syria and Libya were out front
demonstrating their solidarity with Iran. On 26 November, a joint
Libyan–Iranian statement confirmed the need for ‘Arab–Iranian
fraternity’ and the two parties reiterated their support for Islamic and
Arab liberation movements in ‘their struggle against colonialism,
38
imperialism and Zionism’. Then, a few days later, an official Syrian
government statement supported the Iranian cause and expressed
concern over the US naval build-up in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea in response to the hostage crisis. At the same time,
another Iranian delegation led by Dr Mohammad Ali Hadi was dispatched to various foreign capitals to win Arab backing for Iran’s
position. The delegation’s first stop was Damascus, where it held
meetings with Assad and Khaddam.
Two days before the Iranian delegation arrived in Damascus,
Brigadier-General Mohammed al-Khouli (chief of Syrian air force
intelligence, director of special operations in the Middle East and a
close aide of Hafez Assad) arrived in the Iranian capital. While in
Tehran, he delivered a message from Khaddam and held extensive
talks with Sadeq Ghotbzadeh. According to Western intelligence
reports, during his visit the two sides secretly agreed to conduct joint
covert operations against Iraq to destabilize Saddam Hussein. AlKhouli held talks with several of Khomeini’s advisers. Apparently, the
main outcome of the meetings was closer collaboration between the
Syrian and Iranian intelligence services to assist the activities of the
Shiite opposition in southern Iraq. In the course of his meetings and
deliberations, it was agreed that Ayatollah Montazeri’s son would
serve as the main liaison with Damascus on the anti-Iraq operations.
Immediately after al-Khouli’s visit, two Syrian intelligence teams were
39
dispatched to Iran to establish a permanent base of operations.
Harmonizing Syrian–Iranian policies in November and December
coincided with the erosion of Iran’s relations with its two most
important Arab neighbours, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. In late November,
when Saudi Shiites in the oil-rich Hasa province tried to commemorate the holy day of Ashura, which the authorities had banned,
clashes with security forces resulted in a number of deaths. The
incident sparked off demonstrations and unrest throughout the prov-
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
27
ince. Saudi authorities quickly rushed in 20,000 troops to restore
order. Although Shiites were traditionally a repressed minority in the
Saudi kingdom, the victims of discrimination and poor treatment and
therefore with legitimate grievance against Riyadh, the evidence suggests that, as the Saudis have charged, Iranian ayatollahs like
Khalkhali and Rouhani were trying to encourage Shiite opposition to
Riyadh. Iran subsequently denounced the ‘barbaric repression’ of the
Shiite minority as clear proof of the tyrannical and ferocious nature of
40
the Saudi regime.
Amid continuous border clashes between Iran and Iraq, and
repeated calls from senior officials on both sides for the removal from
power of their rivals across the border, on 1 November, Iraq’s ambassador to Lebanon held an interview with the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar
in which he bluntly stated that, as far as Iraq was concerned, relations
with Iran could only improve if Tehran agreed to revise the 1975
Algiers accord (relinquishing joint sovereignty over the Shatt alArab), granted the Kurdish, Arab and Baluchi minorities in Iran
autonomy, and withdrew from the Tunb and Abu Musa islands in the
Persian Gulf. His comments prompted a swift response from Tehran
that accused Baghdad of serving the goals of Western imperialism by
refusing to participate in the Steadfastness Front against Israel and
the unity scheme with Syria. Iran also moved in November to restore
full diplomatic relations with another of its staunch Arab allies, Libya.
Ties between the two had been broken nine months earlier by Iranian
suspicions that Qadhafi was responsible for the disappearance of the
41
prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Musa Sadr.
It is worth mentioning that during a three-week period in the
month of December, unidentified gunmen (probably Iraqi-backed)
twice attacked Syrian diplomatic representations in Tehran. In the
first instance, they attacked the Syrian consulate general, and in the
second, they assaulted the Syrian ambassador’s residence. In the latter
incident, at least one Iranian Revolutionary Guard assigned to the
premises was shot.
In early 1980, unrest in Saudi Arabia’s Hasa province, intense
Iranian propaganda against the House of Saud and a realization in
Baghdad and Riyadh that Iran’s revolution threatened their national
security prompted both sides to coordinate their policies more
closely. This in turn brought further attacks from the Iranian news
media, which portrayed the Saudi–Iraqi rapprochement as part of a
grand scheme to safeguard the West’s interests in the Gulf in the
absence of the Shah; Iraqi–Saudi relations had grown more cordial
28
SYRIA AND IRAN
since the November 1978 Baghdad summit. Moreover, the failure of
the Syrian–Iraqi unity scheme in mid-1979 and Iran’s provocative
behaviour in the area had given extra impetus to the reconciliation
between Saddam Hussein and King Khaled. As early as November
1979, Saudi Arabia and Iraq had reportedly begun secret negotiations
about collective security arrangements in the Gulf. During these talks,
Riyadh apparently agreed to the stationing of Iraqi forces in Bahrain
and Oman to prevent any unrest instigated by Iran and to serve as a
42
springboard for military action against the latter. Before the Iranian
revolution, Iraq had been seen as the main revisionist power in the
area bent on upsetting the existing status quo. With the toppling of
the Pahlavi throne, and the emergence of a revolutionary regime in
Tehran, the general view among the Arab sheikhdoms was that
Saddam Hussein had now assumed the Shah’s mantle as the guarantor
of the status quo in the Gulf. Tehran, for its part, did not hesitate to
take advantage of every opportunity to denounce the Saudi royal
family as puppets of the USA, and the Iraqi Ba’thists as atheists who
adhered to a godless ideology.
The Iraqi propaganda war and Syria’s utility for the Islamic Republic
A gradual change in Iraqi propaganda against Iran accompanied the
deterioration in Arab–Iranian relations. By early 1980, subtle changes
were noticeable in the statements of Iraqi officials who had previously
alluded to ‘turbaned shahs’ when trying to tarnish the clerical regime.
Instead, they also described it as un-Islamic and presented the rivalry
between Iran and Iraq as an extension of the age-old conflict between
Persians and Arabs. Between January and September 1980, the Iraqis’
verbal attacks on the Iranian regime were extended to the Persian
people, which, at an ideological level, made it imperative for Iran’s
ruling clerics to cultivate close ties with as many Arab states as
possible. They concentrated on those that would counter the Iraqi
challenge and allow Iran to join in the Arab–Muslim battle against
Israel in the Levant. By those criteria, and in the light of Tehran’s
warm relations with Damascus, Syria was the ideal candidate.
Responding to Iranian denunciations of the Iraqi Ba’thists as not
only reactionary but also un-Islamic, Saddam said in an interview
with the Paris-based Al-Watan al-Arabi that it was wrong of the
Iranians to think that there was a contradiction between an Islamic
and an Arab revolution. He held that ‘the mere supposition or expectation that such a conflict or contradiction is inevitable, makes the
43
Iranians the enemies of the Arab nation’. Just over a week later, on
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
29
8 February, Saddam issued his pan-Arab declaration in which he
advocated close collaboration among Arabs against foreign enemies,
and stressed the need for all Arab states to support an Arab country
engaged in war against a non-Arab one. By spring, there was every
indication that Baghdad had come to the conclusion that war with
Iran was the only viable way in which it could neutralize the Iranian
threat and assert its position in the region, especially in the Gulf and
vis-à-vis Syria. The Iraqi leadership had by then become extremely
sensitive to the attitude of other Arab countries towards the Iranian
revolutionaries, interpreting any Arab sympathy for the clerical
regime as a betrayal of greater Arab and Iraqi interests. Syria, on the
other hand, continued to cultivate strong ties with Tehran, despite
the increasing disillusionment with its policies among the majority of
its Arab neighbours. Senior officials like the information minister
Ahmad Iskandar Ahmad articulated the Syrian position and stressed
in an interview that:
We appreciate the role of the Iranian revolution and we are
establishing the closest possible relations with it in various fields.
… We believe that establishing good relations with the Iranian
revolution and supporting that revolution so it can settle down
and devote time to help the Arabs liberate their occupied
territories is the duty of every Arab who believes that Israel and
44
US imperialism are the danger to be faced.
Even in the light of Iran’s increasing isolation brought about by the
continuation of the hostage crisis and the imposition of economic
sanctions, the Syrians seemed adamant about preserving their ties
with Iran and, if the opportunity arose, helping to resolve the dispute
45
with the USA.
In mid-March, Iraqi–Iranian relations reached a new low when both
countries were forced to reduce their embassy staffs at the request of
the host government and their ambassadors were declared persona
non grata; relations continued at the chargé d’affaires level. Baghdad
blamed Iran for an attempt on the Iraqi foreign minister’s life on 1
April and, from then on, Iraqi statements assumed a distinctly racist
tone. For example, in a speech about the incident, Saddam evoked the
1400 year-old battle of Qadisiyah between the Persian Sassanid and
46
Arab armies. A subsequent political commentary said Khomeini had
a distorted understanding of Islam and used it against the Arabs to
achieve ‘racist, decadent, and Shu’ubi’ objectives. It went on to accuse
30
SYRIA AND IRAN
him of wanting to dominate the Arabs to avenge a 1400 year-old Persian inferiority complex. It continued to say that Khomeini wanted to
‘kill all that is neither Persian nor Islamic in his devious fashion, is a
racist lunatic. Were Khomeini’s regime in a position to begin [this]
war, it would not hesitate to do [so], despite its consequences. …
47
They are sick with their Persianism.’ The intensification of the
propaganda war coincided with an outright statement of solidarity for
Iraq by Jordan’s King Hussein, and a visit by the Jordanian chief of
48
staff to Baghdad to assess the military situation.
These events happened at the same time as a meeting between
Khomeini and Syria’s ambassador to Iran, Yunis, who conveyed a
message of support for Iran from Hafez Assad. Khomeini for his part,
asked for Syrian cooperation with Iran in its struggle against imperialist and anti-Islamic forces like the USA and Iraq. Escalating tensions
between Iran and Iraq were revealed in different ways throughout the
region. In Lebanon, there were periodic armed clashes between the
Shiite Amal militia against the pro-Iraqi Arab Liberation Front and
elements of the Lebanese Ba’th Party sympathetic to Iraq.
In the aftermath of the failed attempt to rescue the US hostages
(April 1980), in which eight US servicemen died, the Syrian government was quick to condemn the action as ‘an act of piracy aimed
49
against Iran and its people’. Following the debacle in the Iranian
desert, the Syrian regime received Iranian Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh on the first leg of an Arab tour to win support for Iran.
Ghotbzadeh met Hafez Assad, Khaddam and Rif’at Assad. He briefed
them on the details of the US rescue attempt and other regional
developments. During his meeting with the Syrian leader, the latter
reiterated his support for Iran’s stance against Washington and Tel
Aviv. Another topic high on the agenda, according to diplomatic
sources, was the growing tension between Iran and Iraq and the need
for further Syrian assistance. After two days of talks, a joint communiqué was issued condemning the US operation as a clear violation of
Iran’s territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty, and a threat
to international peace and security. At another press conference on 1
May, Khaddam criticized the US onslaught on Iran, emphasizing that
any effort directed against the Iranians would be considered to be
against the Arabs also. He accused Washington of trying to impose its
50
will on the Arab world.
By mid-spring, Syria had started a major airlift of Soviet-made arms
to Iran to replace the latter’s stocks of Western-supplied arms, which
were rapidly becoming depleted, and to assist Iran’s military oper-
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
31
ations on the frontier with Iraq. Syrian Antonov An-12 cargo planes
ferried the arms from Syria’s stockpiles to Iranian airfields. The
weapons included 23-mm anti-tank guns, mortars, artillery pieces,
anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles and ammunition. Damascus
had apparently agreed to provide military help during a secret visit by
a personal representative of Iranian President Bani-Sadr in April. The
emissary had submitted to Assad a detailed list of weapons, ammunition, spare parts and medical equipment that Iran urgently needed
51
to counter a possible Iraqi attack. In addition to the arms airlift,
Syrian military personnel were sent to Iran to train and familiarize the
52
Iranian troops with the military equipment.
Syria’s quest for regional allies and inter-Arab politics
Besides their mutual hate of Iraq, Syria had other reasons to cultivate
close ties with Iran. Its relations with Saudi Arabia and Morocco
deteriorated badly in mid-1980 when the Saudi and Moroccan
monarchs expressed regret that the Steadfastness and Confrontation
states had recognized the RASD at their meeting in Tripoli. The
growing friendship between Iran and Syria alarmed the Saudis,
which, given the poor state of Iranian–Gulf Arab relations, enabled
Syria to play its ‘Gulf card’ in the arena of inter-Arab politics.
Damascus, on the other hand, was livid when Saudi Prince Fahd
expressed Riyadh’s willingness to help bring about a settlement of the
Arab–Israeli conflict within the framework of UN Resolutions 242
and 338, which in effect undermined the PLO and Syrian positions.
Syrian motives at the time were defensive and offensive. With
Egypt out of the picture in the Arab–Israeli conflict, the possibility of
an alliance with Iraq ever more remote, and Saudi and Iraqi ambivalence about the Camp David accords, Assad decided to bolster his
position in the Levant and Gulf by befriending Khomeini’s Iran. He
saw a Syrian–Iranian axis in the region as strengthening his hand,
thus giving him the leverage he needed to deal with Baghdad, Riyadh
and Tel Aviv from a position of power.
Another bone of contention between the Syrians and Saudis was the
inclusion of South Yemen as a confrontation state at the Tripoli conference. Much to the Saudis’ chagrin, the Syrians subsequently went
so far as to say that an attack on South Yemen would be regarded as a
betrayal of the Palestinian cause. Assad’s main reason for stressing the
importance of friendship with Aden and Moscow was to irritate the
Saudis and Iraqis. Riyadh, for its part, disapproved of Syrian efforts to
push the Soviets centre stage as the Arabs’ loyal patron. Furthermore,
32
SYRIA AND IRAN
it viewed the prospects of an emergent Syrian–Iranian–South Yemeni
entente with deep consternation. By August, several operating axes
had appeared in the Middle East, a Saudi–Iraqi–Jordanian axis, a
Syrian–Iranian–Palestinian axis, a Syrian–Soviet–South Yemeni axis,
53
and an Omani–Egyptian–American axis.
When the Syrian ambassador and his staff were expelled from
Baghdad on 18 August and Damascus retaliated in kind three days
later, Syrian–Iraqi relations reached a nadir. Surprisingly, this row
gave Syria a new opportunity to diversify its relations and seek a new
ally when Qadhafi sent a message to Saddam and Assad pleading for
reconciliation between the two Ba’thist regimes and unity in the Arab
world. In early September, Damascus responded positively to the
Libyan call by proposing a union between Syria and Libya. Assad
eventually undertook an official state visit to Libya where the two
leaders held extensive talks, which culminated in a declaration of
unity under the terms of which the two states would take simultaneous steps towards forming a single political entity ruled by a
single executive body and revolutionary command.
Qadhafi’s decision to call for a union between the two states was
primarily politically motivated, whereas Assad hoped that the merger
would bring economic benefits. The Libyan leader wanted finally to
legitimize his dubious claim that his country was a confrontation
state. Ever since Israel and Egypt had signed the Camp David accords,
he had consistently argued that nothing stood between Israel and
Libya, and Syrian–Libyan unity seemed to be an effective way of
lending credibility to his position. From Assad’s viewpoint, the
alliance would allow him to secure Libyan petrodollars to finance his
arms build-up to check Israeli power. After Camp David, Qadhafi
had, after all, promised to foot a billion dollar bill for Soviet-made
arms for the Steadfastness Front. Moreover, it was hoped that the
union with Libya would translate into a reliable source of oil for
Syria, which no longer considered it prudent to rely on Iraq and
Saudi Arabia given the poor state of relations between those two
countries. Both parties also believed that a union between them
would strengthen their bargaining position with Moscow, thereby
enabling them to persuade the Soviets to upgrade their military
54
assistance to the new state.
Following the declaration of unity, Iran’s government expressed
support for the alliance and a willingness to cooperate with the new
united front against Israel and the supporters of Camp David. On 11
September, Iran’s prime minister Raja’i sent messages to Assad and
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
33
Qadhafi conveying his delight at their moves towards unity and the
hope that they would support the Iranian revolution and other
progressive movements against foes like ‘the bloodthirsty Iraqi Ba’thi
55
regime’. Baghdad, on the other hand, ridiculed the Syrian–Libyan
unity attempt, stating that it would inevitably fail, for neither party
was sincere in its unionist intentions. The Iraqi media also denounced
Damascus and Tehran as enemies of Arabism and criticized them for
supporting the Amal militia in Lebanon.
Iraq, for its part, was also at this time engaged in intense diplomatic
manoeuvring and discussions with prospective allies as it prepared to
go to war with Iran. In summer 1980, Iraqi foreign minister Tareq
Aziz had secret talks in Jordan and Saudi Arabia with US officials, and
told them of Baghdad’s plan to invade Iran in the autumn. Given the
abysmal state of US–Iranian relations at the time, the USA expressed
56
no objection to the Iraqi plan. Subsequently, in early August, Saddam flew to Taif where he spoke to the Saudi monarch and informed
57
him of his decision to invade Iran. The following month, the Iraqi
leader received the Bahraini prime minister, Shaykh Khalifah bin
Salman al-Khalifah, and later on the Qatari foreign minister. Both
expressed their support for Iraq’s policies in the Gulf and condemned
Iran’s behaviour. Finally, on 17 September, Saddam Hussein convened an extraordinary session of the Iraqi national assembly, where
he announced the abrogation of the 1975 Algiers accord with Iran,
thus setting the stage for the invasion of Iran five days later.
Syria and the Persian Gulf war
A few days before the Iraqi invasion Iranian president Bani-Sadr sent
a special envoy to Damascus to seek diplomatic and military assistance: having come to the conclusion that all-out war with Iraq was
imminent, he asked for public statements of support for Iran’s
position, additional arms, and for Syria to hold manoeuvres on the
Iraqi border to divert Iraqi forces from the eastern front. After
prolonged talks and consultations, the Syrian leader refused to give
Iran public support or to conduct military exercises in the east, for
fear of the political repercussions it would have on the regime both
domestically and regionally. However, Assad agreed to resume arms
shipments to Iran as soon as possible. Within a few days of the war
starting, the Syrians began to airlift weapons, medical supplies and
teams of ordnance experts and physicians to Iran. The arms shipments consisted primarily of SAM-7 ground-to-air missiles, Sagger
58
anti-tank missiles and RPG-7 anti-tank rockets.
34
SYRIA AND IRAN
Immediately after the hostilities began, most Arab leaders declared
their support for Iraq, most notably King Khaled of Saudi Arabia who
stated that his country stood ‘with Iraq in its pan-Arab battle and its
59
conflict with the Persians, the enemies of the Arab nation’. In
Amman, King Hussein convened an emergency meeting of the
council of ministers who subsequently released a statement urging a
united Arab stand in support of ‘fraternal Iraq’. Only Qadhafi and
Arafat sent messages to both Baghdad and Tehran expressing regret
and pleading for an end to the war, since it only served US and Israeli
interests. Although Syria remained silent, Assad spoke on the telephone with the Saudi and Jordanian monarchs on 25 September in
the hope of finding a way to stop the hostilities as soon as possible.
He subsequently sent his minister of state for foreign affairs Faruq alShara to Taif to confer with King Khaled. However, all indications
seem to suggest that the mission was in vain.
Despite Arab support for Iraq, Baghdad made three major mistakes
when it decided to launch a full-scale war. It not only miscalculated
its own military capability and the resilience of its revolutionary foe,
but also failed to secure its western flank by mending fences with
Damascus before setting out to deal with Iran. And, with Assad’s
hopes for a ceasefire and quick end to the fighting dashed, the spectre
of a triumphant Iraq prompted him to take drastic measures to help
avert an Iraqi victory and ensure Iran’s ability to fight on. The Syrian
regime feared that if Iraq decisively defeated Iran, it would come
under a direct threat from Baghdad. Furthermore, a victorious and
confident Iraq would be in a favourable position to assist the Syrian
Muslim Brethren openly and challenge Syrian interests in the region.
While the war produced no new alignments, it crystallized the
already emerging rival camps, thereby polarizing the Arab world even
more. The most important axes in the early phase of the conflict were
the Syrian–Iranian–Libyan and Saudi–Iraqi–Jordanian ones. In the
former, Syria proved to be Iran’s most valuable ally, while Jordan
played a critical role in aiding the Iraqis by letting them station their
military aircraft at Jordanian air bases out of harm’s way. The Mafraq
air base in eastern Jordan was in effect handed over to the Iraqis.
Jordan also put its port facilities at Aqaba at their disposal, and
mobilized a fleet of trucks and transport vehicles to take the cargo to
Iraq. Furthermore, in early October, a 40,000 strong Jordanian force
was reportedly moved to the Jordanian–Iraqi border, ready to
60
intervene in the Gulf War if the need arose.
Syria, for its part, remained silent about the war for the first two
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
35
weeks as it anxiously waited to see if Iran would survive the Iraqi
onslaught. In the first week of October, when it became clear that
Iran had absorbed the initial blow and was rolling with the punches,
Damascus finally broke its silence and condemned the Iraqi invasion
61
as ‘the wrong war against the wrong enemy at the wrong time’.
Baghdad’s attempts to depict the conflict as an Arab–Persian war and
a defence of the Arab homeland against ‘fire-worshipping racist Per62
sians’ were severely criticized. In a speech, Assad made a thinly veiled
attack on Saddam’s ‘hollow heroics’ and stressed that Syria had the
63
‘capacity to inflict fierce punishment’ on imposters. Damascus
claimed that fighting Iran would divide the Arab ranks and needlessly
divert their attention at a time when they should be concentrating
their energies on defeating the true enemy, Israel. It clearly stated that
the war was neither in the interest of Iran nor Iraq and the Arab nation.
According to the Syrian daily Al-Ba’th of 5 October, ‘fighting the
Iranian revolution will only make Iran join the camp against the
Arabs’, but ‘we want Iran to join Arab ranks that are hostile to
imperialism and Zionism; we want Arab Iraq to remain an additional
strength for Arabs against imperialism and Zionism, and not against
the Iranian revolution’.
Meanwhile, Iraq continued its intense propaganda against Syria,
accusing it of betraying the pan-Arab cause by sending troops and
weapons to Iran. Despite Iraqi claims that Syrian and Libyan soldiers
were captured in the fighting, no convincing evidence was ever
64
produced. Baghdad’s campaign to discredit its neighbour prompted
Syrian assistant foreign minister Nasir Qaddur to summon the Iraqi
chargé d’affaires in Damascus on 6 October to lodge a formal protest
against the Iraqi accusations.
Two days later, Assad flew to Moscow to sign a friendship and
cooperation treaty with the USSR. This was part of a strategy to
bolster his position in the region (particularly vis-à-vis Israel and
Iraq) by securing Soviet military and economic assistance and thus
65
bring his superpower patron in on the side of Iran. On concluding
the treaty, Assad and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev issued a joint
communiqué indirectly rebuking Iraq by supporting ‘Iran’s inalienable right to determine its destiny independently and without any
66
foreign interference’. The negotiations included arrangements to
have Soviet arms delivered to Iran. The Kremlin also approved the
shipment of Soviet-made arms from Syria, Libya and other countries
to Iran. Subsequently, Iranian military transport planes began continuous flights to Syria and Libya, carrying Soviet-made weapons
36
SYRIA AND IRAN
67
back to Iran. Iranian air force Boeing 707s, 727s, 747s, and
Lockheed C-130s flew to Damascus and Tripoli carrying arms and
ammunition back to Iran. Furthermore, some C-130s brought Iranian
68
casualties to Damascus for treatment in Syrian hospitals. The Syrians
played a critical role in maintaining the flow of arms from various
Arab states to the Islamic Republic. Soviet-made equipment from
Libya was shipped by sea to Syrian ports, and then transhipped by
69
land via Turkey. Algeria also commenced arms transfers to Iran in
May 1981, after having decided to aid the Iranian war effort. These
weapons were first sent by ship to the Syrian port of Tartus, where
70
the cargo was unloaded and subsequently flown to Iran.
Besides providing war material, the Syrians passed on valuable
intelligence on Iraq’s capabilities and plans. Their ambassador to Tehran, Ibrahim Yunis, assiduously relayed useful intelligence to Iranian
71
officials, and Moscow too used him as a conduit of information. To
improve the coordination of the joint Syrian–Iranian effort to stem
the Iraqi onslaught, General Ali Aslan, the Syrian deputy chief of staff
and head of operations, travelled to Iran to consult his Iranian
counterparts. He discussed the military situation with the joint chief
of staff, General Valiollah Fallahi, and with General Javad Fakuri, the
defence minister and air force commander. As part of their overall
effort to aid Iran, the Syrians agreed to try to procure US-made spare
72
parts in Europe for Iran’s Western-equipped arsenal.
The war quickly brought the rifts in the Arab world into sharper
focus and deepened existing cleavages. In 1980, relations between
members of the pro-Iraqi camp and Iran’s other valuable Arab ally,
Libya, deteriorated dramatically. Qadhafi was quick to criticize
Riyadh’s decision to allow a US military presence (AWACS earlywarning aircraft) in the kingdom and to side with Iraq in the war. In
a telegram to King Khaled, he stressed that it was ‘an Islamic duty for
[them] to be allied with the Muslims in Iran in this confrontation in
order to face the crusade instead of fighting them in place of
73
America’. On 11 October, Baghdad severed its diplomatic ties with
Damascus and Tripoli, accusing them of having erected an air bridge
to Tehran to supply the ‘Magi racist clique’ with arms to continue
their aggression against Iraq. The Iraqi foreign ministry declared
Syrian and Libyan embassy staff persona non grata and gave them 48
hours to leave. A statement released by the foreign ministry asserted
74
that the rulers of the two countries were devoid of any Arabism.
Interestingly, Syria and Libya both denied giving Iran military assistance, even after the Iraqi announcement. Assad and Qadhafi were
THE EMERGENCE OF THE SYRIAN–IRANIAN AXIS, 1979–82
37
clearly aware of the public mood about the Gulf War both within
their countries and in the Arab world. In their riposte, the Syrians
accused Saddam of serving US interests by starting the war, characterizing it as Saddam’s ‘crazy and condemned war against revolution75
ary Iran and against its principled stand with the Arabs’. Qadhafi’s
sermons on the ‘liberation’ of Mecca from US occupation prompted
Riyadh to break off diplomatic relations with Tripoli in late October.
The Saudis warned Qadhafi to stay out of their internal affairs and
(instead of supporting Iran) to remain neutral or side with Iraq in the
war. The intense inter-Arab squabbling in October clearly demonstrated that the Arab world was more divided than ever. The eruption
of the Gulf War alone was not cause enough for two mutually hostile
camps to emerge, but with the plethora of other politically divisive
issues confronting the Arabs, the conflict caused even the most ardent
pan-Arabists to drop any illusion of existing Arab unity.
While Jordan and Saudi Arabia threw their weight behind Iraq,
Iran, with Syria’s help, tried to secure as many regional allies as possible. In late October, Prime Minister Raja’i visited Algeria and Libya
on his way back from a trip to the UN in New York. On 30 October,
Ayatollah Montazeri, Khomeini’s designated successor, met the
Syrian, Libyan and Algerian diplomatic heads of mission in Qom,
where he expressed ‘gratitude for the Islamic and revolutionary
stance adopted by [these] fraternal states and their support of Iran’s
76
Islamic revolution’.
Despite Amman and Riyadh’s efforts to help Baghdad diplomatically, economically and militarily, the Saudi–Iraqi–Jordanian axis
could not meet all Iraq’s military needs and requirements. Baghdad
eventually had to compromise its pan-Arab stand by dispatching a
military delegation to Cairo to buy spare parts and ammunition for its
rapidly depleting Soviet-made arsenal. Worsening Iranian–Gulf Arab
relations following the Islamic revolution and the outbreak of the first
Gulf War finally gave the Egyptians a back door through which to
improve their relations with Iraq, but more importantly through
which to re-enter the Arab political arena.
Similarly, the Syrian–Libyan–Iranian axis failed to meet many of
Tehran’s expectations of military help. While the Syrian armed forces
had a Soviet-manufactured arsenal, the Iranian equipment the clerical
regime inherited from the Shah consisted mainly of US arms. Second,
there were limits to how much military hardware Syria could spare
for its Iranian ally because, for its own security, it needed to deploy
troops against Israel along the Golan Heights in Lebanon and in Syria
38
SYRIA AND IRAN
too at a time when the Muslim Brethren were escalating their campaign of terror against the Ba’th regime in Damascus. Third, deploying troops along the Syrian–Iraqi border to ease Iraqi military
pressure on revolutionary Iran was bound to evoke a harsh response
from many Arab capitals. Thus, Iran was forced to compromise its
political stand by approaching Israel for spare parts and equipment to
maintain its Western-equipped armed forces. However, while Tel
Aviv may have made temporary inroads by re-establishing contacts in
Tehran, Egyptian collaboration in the Iraqi war effort was to have a
far greater and more lasting impact on inter-Arab politics.
Despite limitations on Syria’s ability to help Iran militarily, it played
an important role in preventing the formation of a united Arab front
against Iran in November 1980 by provoking a major diplomatic
crisis and military confrontation with Jordan in the lead-up to the
Arab summit meeting that had been scheduled to begin in Amman on
25 November.
The Syrian–Jordanian confrontation and the Amman summit
By the autumn of 1980, differences on a whole range of critical political issues had brought Syrian–Jordanian relations to an all-time low.
The Syrian Ba’thist regi